ASB North Wharf designed by BVN Donovan Hill in association with Jasmax as a fundamental building block of the new Wynyard Quarter, in Auckland, New Zealand has been given an Auckland Architecture Award for Sustainable Architecture.

According to the awards jury with its “bold response to a sustainable imperative, the building proudly declares its passive technology”, which includes a giant funnel that draws natural air through the workplace.

The jury noted how “vertical activity integration and social spaces combine with innovative solar daylight harvesting technology and sunscreens to help energise a substantial and mobile working community.”

Mr James Grose, National Director, BVN Donovan Hill said, “The imperative of all urban renewal programmes is to lay a foundation of excellence in public amenity, robustness of function and contextual, human scaled, diverse and appropriate architecture.”

He pointed out that “the big moves in the sustainability of our planet will come with our ability to affect the sustainability of our cities’ infrastructure.”

“As the office building gets ever more ubiquitous, if we can make these structures indifferent to fashion, then we have achieved an enormous amount. Large open floor plates with attached service cores mean that as corporate behaviour changes and flexibility is required, a building with an unencumbered floor plate will suit space requirements for a very long time,” said Mr Grose.

He noted that, “In coming years the inflexible model of the city skyscraper with its central lift core and restricted floor plate will be demolished and replaced by highly flexible “ground-scraper” buildings that simply require less energy to build, to run, to maintain and will last longer – because they are closer to the ground – sustainable buildings that will not require demolition every 20-30 years.”